Varadkar, Leo (1979-…), served as taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland from 2017 to 2020 and from 2022 to 2024. Varadkar was the leader of Ireland’s center-right Fine Gael (United Ireland) party from 2017 to 2024. He succeeded Enda Kenny as both Fine Gael leader and taoiseach << TEE shok >> in 2017. Only 38 years old when he took office that year, Varadkar was at that time the youngest taoiseach in the country’s history. He was also Ireland’s first taoiseach of Indian descent and the country’s first openly gay taoiseach.
Varadkar was born on Jan. 18, 1979, in Dublin, the capital of Ireland. His father is from Mumbai, India, and began working as a doctor in England and Ireland in the 1960’s. His mother is a nurse from southeast Ireland’s County Waterford. Born with one parent of Hindu and the other of Roman Catholic background, Varadkar was raised Catholic. He was active in Young Fine Gael, the party’s youth wing, while studying at Trinity College Dublin, where he earned a medical degree in 2003. Varadkar became a general practitioner in 2010. A general practitioner is a doctor who provides basic medical treatment.
Varadkar ran unsuccessfully for the Fingal County Council in 1999. He was co-opted (appointed as a replacement) for a council seat in 2003 and won election to the council the following year. In 2007, Varadkar was elected to represent the Dublin West constituency (voting district) in Dáil Éireann, the Irish Parliament’s lower house. He was reelected as a member of Parliament (called a teachta Dála, or TD) in 2011 and 2016. He served successively as Ireland’s minister for transport, tourism, and sport; minister for health; and minister for social protection. Varadkar came out as gay in early 2015, just a few months before Ireland voted to legalize same-sex marriage.
After becoming taoiseach in June 2017, Varadkar faced such challenges as housing shortages and hospital overcrowding. He announced his resignation from the position in February 2020, after losing a parliamentary leadership vote, but remained as taoiseach until a successor was named. In June, Fine Gael entered into a coalition government with the Fianna Fáil party and the Green Party. As part of the governing agreement, Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin succeeded Varadkar for a period that was scheduled to end in late 2022. Varadkar became taoiseach again in December 2022. He resigned as the leader of Fine Gael in March 2024. The party selected Simon Harris as its new leader later that month, and Harris succeeded Varadkar as taoiseach in April.
